Israeli army expels militant's West Bank siblings to Gaza

A Palestinian brother and sister, handcuffed, blindfolded and spirited away in Israeli jeeps and tanks, were deposited Wednesday in a vineyard in the Gaza Strip in the first court-approved expulsion of relatives of suspected terrorists.

The Israeli Supreme Court approved the transfer of Kifah and Intisar Ajouri, siblings of dead West Bank militant Ali Ajouri, from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip after finding Tuesday that the two had assisted their brother in terror acts. The court order, which cited national security as its basis, upheld a controversial Israeli army decision.

Human-rights organizations called the forced transfers a violation of international law and likened them to deportation, even though the pair was moved from one Palestinian territory to another.

Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer said the military was looking at expelling additional relatives of terror suspects.

The Ajouris, who lived in a refugee camp in Nablus all their lives, said they were taken by jeep and tank for nearly two hours to an unsettled new beginning in Gaza. They said they were surprised midday Wednesday when Israeli soldiers released their handcuffs, handed them a few hundred dollars worth of shekels and told them to get out and start walking.

The two, who had been jailed for about three months, had had little idea where they were, Intisar Ajouri said later at a news conference in Gaza City. A Palestinian cameraman found them walking along rows of grapevines.

"We kept walking until we saw a farmer and his wife. We approached him and asked for help," said the 34-year-old woman. "The man told us: `What are you doing here? This is a very dangerous place. You are very close to a settlement. Four days ago, four Palestinians were killed here.'

"I told him who we were. He understood, shook his head and took us into his home," she said, looking weary.

The expulsion order, the latest measure Israel has imposed in the face of Palestinian terror attacks, demands that the Ajouris remain in Gaza for two years. The decision can be reviewed, under military law, every six months.

Another West Bank man, the brother of a Hamas militant, avoided such a transfer when the Israeli high court deemed any links to his brother's actions as negligible.

Raji Al-Surani, a lawyer and chairman of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, said Wednesday that he did not know where the Ajouris would live, and that the Palestinian Authority had, as yet, made no provision for the siblings.

The authority had protested the court order Tuesday and, according to the Ajouris, was hoping to stop the transfer at the main checkpoint leading to Gaza, known as Erez Crossing.

Amnesty International described the court ruling as a "grave breach" of international law and a violation of the right to a fair trial. Some allegations against the Ajouris were based on high-level security information that was not released in open court.

Intisar Ajouri was calm during much of the press conference, but grew adamant when asked whether she had, as the Israeli army charged and the court held, sewn explosive belts used in terror attacks planned by her brother. Kifah Ajouri had been found to have acted as a lookout for Ali Ajouri, who was killed in a targeted assassination by the Israelis on Aug. 6.

"We had nothing to do with this," Intisar Ajouri said of the accusations. "We did not share in anything. All that the Israelis are doing are kind of sadism. They are trying to make us an example for everyone who would dare to think to resist the occupation."

The military argued that the expulsions would create a powerful deterrent, though the court stipulated that the army could not employ expulsions as a deterrent alone. Each suspected case of terror involvement must be judged based on compelling evidence, it said. Expulsions must be based on whether a suspect posed a security danger, the court said.